About the Scientist

Dr. Jessie Christiansen received her PhD from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia where she worked on Searching for Transiting Extrasolar Planets from Australia and Antarctica. Jessie did her Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Boston, MA and joined NASA Ames Research Center/SETI Institute in 2010. Since 2013 she has been a Staff Scientist at the NASA Exoplanet Archive & NASA Kepler Mission Participating Scientist.

About the Guest Comedians

Joey Avery is a standup comedian rising quickly in the San Francisco comedy scene. He received the Jimmy Gunn award for Best Newcomer to the Bay Area comedy scene in 2014, top 10 video status on Reddit, and has been recognized with top 3 finishes in the 2014 Walk the Plank Comedy Competition, the 2015 Make Me Laugh San Francisco Competition, and the 2015 Rooster T Feathers Comedy Competition.

Brooke Heinichen’s feel-good comedy act covers her Ohio upbringing, with a sprinkling of political commentary on both sides of the aisle, tied together with animated, vibrant storytelling that makes light of everything from failed dating experiments to family funerals. Her warm rapport leaves audience members feeling like they have a new best friend. She produces Bay Area showcases Brave New Jokes, Jokelandish, Thinking Women’s Comedy, ACLU fundraiser shows with Hot Take Comedy, and will perform in 2018 SF Sketchfest, selected as one of Audible’s Fresh Faces of Stand-Up.

Partner: ManyLabs

ManyLabs is a collaborative community that focuses on open science, science education, environmental science, data-driven wellness, low-cost tools, and a diversity of projects under the umbrella of science for good.

Partner: Kepler Mission

Kepler Spacecraft is a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-size planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched on March 7, 2009 and has identified several thousand exoplanets.